CHRISTMAS CREEK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 37, 3 January 1890, Page 15

CHRISTMAS CREEK.

By Henry Kendal.

Phantom streams were in the distance— mocking lights of lake and

pool — Ghosts of trees of soft green lustre — groves of Bhadows deep and cool ; Tea, some devil ran before them changing skies of braßß to blue, Setting bloom where curse is planted, where a grass-blade never

grew. Six there were, and high above them glared a wild and wizened

sun, Ninety leagues from where the waters of the singing valleys run. There before them, there behind them, was the great, stark, stubborn

plain. Where the dry winds hiss for ever, and the blind earth moans for

rain 1 Bidged about by tracks of furnace, ninety leagues from stream and

tree, Six there were, with wasted faces, working northwards to the tea ! *****

* A.h, the bitter, hopeless desert I Here these broken human wrecks Trod the wilds where sand of fire is with the spiteful spinifex, Toiled through spheres that no bird knows of, where with fiery em-

phasis Hell hath stamped its awful mint-mark deep on everything that is 1 Toiled and thirsted, strove and suffered 1 This was where Decem-

bers breath As a wind of smiting flame is on wiard, haggard wastes of death ! This was where a withered moao is, and the gleam of weak, wan star, And a thunder full of menace sends its mighty voices far I This was where black execrations, from some dark tribunal hurled, Set the brand of curse ou all things in the morning of the world 1

****** One man yielded — then another— then a lad of nineteen years Seeled an i fell, with English rivers singing; softly ia hii ears. English grasses started round him — then tha grace of Sussex lea C ime and touched him with the beauty of a green lin 1 by the sea ! Old-world faces thronged about him — old-world voices spoke to him , But his speech was ltke a whisper, and his eyes were very dim. In a dream of gulden evening, beaming on a quiet strand, Lay the stranger till a bright One came and took him by the hand. England vanished, died the voices ! but he haard a holier tone, And an angel that we know not led him to the lands unknown.

Six there were, but three were taken I Three were left to struggle still ; But against the red horizon flimed the horn of bridled hill t But beyond the northern Bk/line, past a wall of steep austere, Lay the land of light and coolness in an April-coloured year I "Courage, brothers, " cried the leader; '"on the slope of yonder peak There are tracks of herb and shadow, and the channels of the creek I Ho they made one last gre.it eflbrt— halei their blasts through brake and biiar — Set. their feet on spurs of furnace — grappled spikes and crags of

fire — Fought the stubborn mountain forces, smote down naked, natural

powers, Till they gazid from thrones of morning on,a sphere of streams and

flowers. Out behind them was the desert, glaring like a sea of brass I Here before them were the valleys, fair with moonlight-coloured

grass I At their backs were haggard waste-lands, bickering in a wicked blaze 1 In their faces beamed the waters, marching down melodious ways 1 Touching was the cool, soft lustre over laps of lawn and lea, And majestic was the great road Morning made across the sea. On the sacred day of Christmas, after seveu month* of grief, Bested three of six who starteJ, on a bank of nr jss and leaf, Rested by a running river, ia a hushed, a holy week ; And they named the stream that saved them— named it fitly — " Christmas Creek."